


Zersetzung

by primeideal



Category: Die perfekte Diktatur - Farin Urlaub Racing Team (Song)
Genre: Dystopia, F/M, Yuletide 2018, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 12:56:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16873305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primeideal/pseuds/primeideal
Summary: There is only one way out.





	Zersetzung

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TeaRoses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaRoses/gifts).



> Content note: in addition to the canon-typical dystopian elements, this fic also contains a brief, false-alarm pregnancy scare.

Yes, I’ve known Tobias since we were kids. That part is true.

Most of the thoughtful ones, and I would include myself in their number, focused on math or science, something where you could get the right answers without having to ask too many questions. Of course we were busy—they gave us lots to do, maybe so we wouldn’t grow distracted—but it bore fruit, and it felt good to be recognized for what my mind could figure out.

Tobias was one of the few who preferred history and literature. “Many of the worlds’ mightiest societies crumbled because they could not withstand inclusion,” said Ms. Kessel. “People espoused freedom and looked down at those who looked different. They praised equality, and persecuted outsiders.” A truly prosperous land was one where everyone could suceed, be they rich or poor, male or female, devout or skeptical.

I didn’t have any reason to disbelieve that. The Premier looked like she could be someone’s grandmother. My favorite band, the Lunar Phases, were the children of immigrants. Tobias was going on to study dead languages at university, so that he could read the ancient philosophers in their own tongue. Maybe some of them had been misguided, but surely we were free to read whatever we wished, so that we could refute it.

I went to work for a company that made little widgets that got assembled into big widgets that got assembled into windmills to make energy for the people, long into the future, and didn’t think about my school friends for years.

* * *

It was the weather that first made me think about the rest of the world. Not as a serious question, at first. More of a joke.

It was an unseasonably hot day, brutal even for summer, and we were all sitting inside rather than wander out to eat lunch. I mused to Hannelore, one of my colleagues at the time, “Do all the other places have to deal with this heat?”

“Everywhere has modern fans,” said Hannelore, who did not have a great sense of humor.

“Not all the buildings,” I said. “I mean—other places. Outside the Freifeld.”

“They have more important problems,” Hannelore said sternly.

“Like what?” I asked.

“War,” she said. “And inequality, and hatred.”

“Hatred?” I echoed. “Of who?”

“Each other, mostly, I think. That’s why there’s war.”

“Not like that,” said Dominic, who was only slightly senior than us but thought he knew everything. “The poor people hate the wealthy people for being wealthy, and the wealthy people hate the poor people for...reminding them that they’re wealthy.”

This struck me as a very unsatisfying answer. The Freifeld had not eliminated inequality, nor did it claim to; celebrities such as the Lunar Phases had much more money in their bank accounts than I could fathom. But I did not hate them—I admired their talent and was glad it had brought about success. Nor, I hoped, did they hate me. What was an average bureaucrat to their notice?

I did not consider Dominic to be purposefully lying. He was just being Dominic, and running his mouth. But if I wanted to learn more about the outside world, and I suppose that was the first time I truly did, I would need another resource. Not because I wanted to leave. Just because I wanted to see how well off I really was.

* * *

I went to browse through some old books in the library when I had spare time, often in the early mornings before I went to work. I didn’t check out books, of course; that would send the wrong idea entirely. The call number algorithms could keep track of what topics someone was interested in, which was beneficial in the long run. If someone was borrowing too many depressing titles or researching how to construct dangerous weapons, we’re all better off if the system automatically raised a flag and got them help. Since I had no interest in leaving, back then, I didn’t want to set off a false alarm.

The books were not as interesting as I’d hoped. Some were wildly outdated, and I couldn’t place the Freifeld on the ancient maps. Others blurred the lines between fiction and reality. It was all very well and good to read about the emotional upheavals of a soldier on the front lines of some bygone war, but were the names and places grounded in fact or just fabricated for the sake of the story? The texts didn’t seem interested in clarifying.

So I kept browsing. Sometimes I’d have better luck in nearly-unrelated sections; a short introduction to the chemical elements listed the places where many of the rarer ones had first been discovered or synthesized. There didn’t seem to be any point in falsifying those, and I got a sense for what cities had thriving scientific communities, compared to some of the other dots on maps that rarely got mentioned.

That was where I met Tobias, or maybe he ran across me. “You seem to come here often,” he pointed out.

I was taken aback. “Are you trying to flirt with me?”

“Of course not,” he said. “My apologies. I only meant—you’re allowed to borrow books, you know?”

“I’m aware of how the library works,” I said, a little more stiffly than I’d meant.

“Sorry,” he repeated.

But we got to introducing ourselves, and lightened up once we realized that we’d gone to secondary school together. “I work downtown,” he eventually said. “If you need to get into the central library, I’m sure I could help you.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “I don’t want to be any trouble.”

“You’re not,” he smiled.

* * *

That should have been the end of it. It’s easy to say now. But I was lonely—not for romance, specifically, or even friendship, but something or someone to get me out of doors that wasn’t my job. The protagonists of the novels I’d skimmed had unions, churches, paramilitaries to join and fellows to bicker with. It was progress to have moved past such things, to have nothing to agitate or atone for, yet I liked the quiet routine of filling my mornings with idle reading and Tobias’ chatter.

A newspaper, of all things, made me question.

I had come across a book about athletic championships. Track and field, football, various competitions pitting athletes from around the world against each other. I was no stranger to the world of sports, of course. Hannelore sported a _Lokomotive FC_ scarf, and Dominic tracked fantasy football statistics. Still, the notion seemed petty. Why go to all the trouble and expense of staging such an event, and then limit who could participate based on what flag they saluted?

There were few other books cited, and none of them on the shelves. The author, however, did mention making use of many historic newspaper articles, and it occurred to me that some of them might be in the library archives. The librarian—an enormous man with a beard to fit—seemed puzzled by the idea that anyone might want to read old papers, and had to take several minutes to discover how to access them, but he slowly wandered over to a magnifier machine that let me read some of the articles.

They were poorly sorted, and he barely knew how to use the machine any more than I did, so I had to learn by trial and error. I didn’t come across many sports articles for a while, but what I did find surprised me. The articles were denser and more comprehensive than modern papers’, with fewer direct quotes from the government and more analysis.

I asked Tobias what he made of it, on one of our encounters. He paused, then said, “Life was harder back then. There were more troubles, more tragedy, so of course they had more things to write about. And way back in the day, they didn’t have radios or anything, so it all had to be written down.”

“In...other countries? Do you think it’s still like this?” I nodded down at the magnifier. “Since they have war and everything?”

“Other countries?” he laughed. “I suppose.”

I glanced down at the magnifier again, and when I looked up, Tobias was staring at me, eyes full with concern. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll buy you breakfast.”

* * *

We grew closer, in the quiet way most couples I’ve known do. Simple gestures on each other’s behalf—him rousing me from the books if I was becoming annoyed, me meeting him after work with dinner. We did not speak much about futures, ours or the Freifeld’s. That was a childish thing to do. As a toddler I had imagined myself as a chef in a fancy restaurant, “helping” out my parents by banging pots and pans together in the kitchen. Once I realized that this would require tedious, thankless work for ungrateful strangers, I thought better.

“I’ll be travelling a few days for work,” Tobias explained one day. I didn’t exactly understand the work that he did, other than that it was for the government: some kind of bureaucratic role helping students get entry-level jobs.

“Whereabouts?” I asked, mostly for the sake of making conversation.

“Vetter Secondary,” he said. “West of here.”

“Let me know if I can come,” I smiled. “Tell the children about all the fascinating opportunities in the windmill industry.”

“The children?” said Tobias. “You’re no oldster yourself.”

“I’m hardly any older than _you_ ,” I pointed out. “We were in the same class, and I wasn’t held back for duncehood.”

“Yes, yes, you’re quite the prodigy.”

“Well, maybe you can find me a job in your department,” I teased. “Something that lets me see a little more of the world.”

“There’s nothing to see,” Tobias said darkly. “Unless you like young kids with too many questions.”

When I didn’t reply, he laughed. “There’s nothing wrong with appreciating schoolkids. They certainly are energetic.”

“Not that,” I said. “It’s only...it’s a silly thought.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know we are lucky to live here, in the Freifeld. But sometimes it seems strange that we cannot leave. Wouldn’t we appreciate what we have more, if we had something to compare it to?”

Tobias glanced at me, squinting and then pulling away. “You’re serious.”

“All I’m saying is it would be nice to share our wealth with the less fortunate. Or at least to have the chance.”

He raised a hand to my shoulder—a comfort as well as a warning. “We shouldn’t talk about this here.”

* * *

Of course I’d had lots of people back to my apartment, but not so many because they were afraid of speaking freely. I made coffee, then wondered if it was a good idea; Tobias was already fidgeting nervously, just sitting on the couch.

“You’ve thought about leaving,” he repeated.

“I’ve thought about becoming a millionaire and hiring the Lunar Phases to play private concerts for me, too,” I pointed out. “Doesn’t mean it’s possible.”

“But you’ve thought about it.”

“Do you have a problem with thinking?”

“Of course not,” he said. “I—feel like I don’t see enough of it.”

“So you’re going around looking for people to compare me to, is that right?” I grinned.

“Listen,” said Tobias. “If you mean it, you have two choices. You can’t just sneak out—you’d need to break through, and be willing to never come back. Probably not alone, either. Find someone you can trust, and share the load. Otherwise—be silent. There are more than enough books in the library to keep you busy. Wander in your mind, and keep your feet on the ground.”

“And you think I don’t know all that?” I asked. “That I’m just reading because I have nothing better to do?”

“I want you to be safe,” Tobias said. “Don’t say dangerous things unless you want to be heard.”

“Maybe I want you to hear me.”

He blushed slightly, and I went on. “I know how hard it would be to leave. But it’s not easy to stay put, either. Am I responsible for the problems of the world, if our country is so perfect and we do nothing to help? Or are they lying to us about some things, many things? Then wouldn’t I have a duty to find out the truth, to change it?”

Tobias looked around the room as if searching for someone else. But of course, it was only the two of us. “When you put it that way,” he said, “you have a point.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m stupid enough to try to escape. Not alone.”

“But it would be different, with someone you trusted?”

I turned to him, and saw all the doubt and curiosity I’d kept silent, suddenly reflected and given shape. Someone else like me, discontent with only one small corner of the world. “Yes.”

* * *

That was a year ago.

Tobias quickly grew paranoid that we could not stay put. Someone would find us in our apartments, if they hadn’t already. “If that’s true,” I said, “and the government is that vigilant, it only means we need to work faster, no? Get out before they know we’re gone.”

“We can’t rush,” he said. “As fast as possible, but no faster.”

The library held nothing left for us, anyway, only records of what had come before. We needed to chart something new. So we took to meeting in a park closer to my office, in the same early-morning hours. If either or both of us had an off day we might stay long enough to see the dog-walkers or the strollers, but often we left before the crowds moved in.

The weakest points of the border, as far as we could fathom, were some distance north. By the time we made it there, by foot or train, every guard in the country would be looking for us. (That was Tobias’ phrasing. I said it would probably only be half of them; the rest would be busy covering up whatever terrible secrets required all the security in the first place.)

So we planned to break out near Tenhend, which was much closer but somewhat more guarded. From what we could gather, there wasn’t a permanent staff there—just layers of armed fences. Fences we could handle.

Tobias volunteered to get us weapons, in case we met with trouble along the way. He said he could probably smuggle them out of his workplace, it would just take a while. “Exactly what kind of students do you deal with?” I laughed.

He didn’t smile. “They’re not the ones you have to worry about.”

I was in charge of acquiring equipment to disable the fences, or failing that, destroy them. Again, these weren’t exactly common in the windmill factories, but we often had to place special orders. With enough fabrication—and I was certainly qualified to feign the signatures of my bosses who couldn’t be bothered—there were many resources to gather.

I also tried to get us extra food, water, gasoline for when we made it outside. We really had little idea of what to expect. “They’ll greet us as heroes,” Tobias said, when he was in a good mood. “Defying the Freifeld? How many people have done that?”

“Or as enemies,” I said. “Maybe we look like spies. Or maybe the rest of the world hates the country, and we’re just the first representatives they see.”

He opened his mouth, as if to suggest backing out again.

“ _Yes_ ,” I said. “We should still try.”

* * *

The harder we worked, the more potential threats I noticed. And the more threats I saw, the harder I wanted to work.

Every few days the phone would ring; when I picked it up, no one answered. “It’s the government telling you they’re onto you,” Tobias theorized. “They know you’re doing something, they just haven’t figured out _what_.”

“That makes no sense,” I said. “If they were trying to tap the line, wouldn’t they just do that and not be clumsy enough to make it obvious?”

“They’re trying to scare you. So you slip up, make a mistake.”

“Then we’ll just keep talking in person,” I countered. “It’s not like I have that many friends calling to make chitchat.”

But there were subtler things. At work, I labored over my duties as usual, only to find out at the last minute that my presentation had been cancelled and my research was for nothing. When I went for my physical, the receptionist claimed to have no record of me and I had to wait in line for hours to re-register. In the apartment, small things felt off; books were sorted out of order, my milk went sour, the window shades seemed to open and close of their own accord.

“Maybe I’m just imagining things,” I said. “If they wanted to kill me, surely they already could have.”

“It happens to everyone,” said Tobias. “Don’t take it personally.”

And it wasn’t hard to ignore my own concerns, since I was growing more aware of other resistance. Radio announcers assured us we were not in danger even when explosions rocked the downtown. Foreign infiltrators? Violent rebels? The government itself, trying to justify increased security?

Perhaps the most radical thing of all was that even my politically disengaged colleagues seemed to realize the excuses were not always plausible. “If I were you,” Dominic said, “I’d avoid the city after sundown. Just in case.”

No doubt the government was happier with him at home, where he could be monitored and listened in on. But it felt like genuine fear. And who knows? Maybe for some, fear is the first step towards discontent.

“We could investigate,” I suggested to Tobias. “See if we could find out who did it. Whether they want to join us.”

“There’s no chance,” he said. “To tear down the Freifeld from within? We wouldn’t last a week.”

Once we were outside, we promised each other, we could reevaluate. Everything would be different then.

* * *

One morning I woke up in Tobias’ bed.

I had slept lightly, thrilled as I was. He was still asleep. Despite the small changes to his apartment that had put _him_ off-balance, he was still more used to the mattress than I was.

I lay awake quietly, taking in the tiny noises beyond the boundaries of the room. Cars drove by outside, neighbors opened and closed their doors, fans hissed and hummed.

Tobias began rubbing my back as he awoke. “Stay?” he offered.

“Not long,” I said. “Department meeting today.”

I thought he would tell me to forget the department meeting, it was useless anyway even if my colleagues weren’t secretly keeping tabs on me. But he said, “I mean, we could just be—you and me. Like this. Forget all the rest.”

I let him wait until he had paused the backrub, then turned to face him. “You know that I feel for you,” I said. “Very much.”

“Yes.”

“You would not be—the person I care about—if you abandoned our other dreams. Neither would I.”

You wonder now, did I ever mean it? Or was some part of me planning to turn him in, all along?

I was not certain at first, not committed. But that moment, I truly hoped to escape.

I’m glad I felt that, even for a day. It would be hollow to be killed for nothing.

* * *

What changed?

A few weeks after that morning, my period was late. I jumped to conclusions, and began to panic: escaping was hard enough as it was, but in the midst of pregnancy? And how could I plan to give birth in the outside world, when I had no idea what sort of medical facilities might exist? Besides that, exile was no place to bring a child into the world, forever on the run from a homeland they had never known.

I scheduled another appointment with my doctor, endured another round of questioning from the receptionist who had “misplaced” my records yet again, and futilely wondered what I was going to tell Tobias.

And a couple days later, my cramps struck again. I had never been so grateful for the pain.

I tried to go back to normal, and in my routines—mundane and clandestine—I did. But my mind could not settle down. I had discovered something about myself that I had not expected, but that was better to realize sooner rather than later.

I was determined to live. Given the choice, I would rather explore a risky life beyond the Freifeld than the dreary existence I knew. But if running would get me killed, I would sacrifice any formless dream to stay. Or something more than a dream: no matter his convictions, even a flesh-and-blood person like Tobias was not worth dying for.

I did not rush. I tried to give him as long as possible to see if he would change his mind, and meanwhile began taking precautions for if I needed to leave on the spur of the moment. It was depressingly easy to pack. In part because we were planning to make our escape anyway; in part because, with all of the paranoia that came from the little changes around the apartment, there was not much I would miss leaving behind.

* * *

I hid the dynamite near the edge of the city, someplace we would need to pass on our way out. Not even Tobias knows any more than that. I could say, but what difference does it make?

He came to visit one last time, to review the plan. The rooms were mostly bare by then. I had been in touch with Mr. Buchner, who does something with public transit, to ensure he could take over if I had to leave. I think he already suspected me of knowing more, of wanting to denounce someone but being fearful. But he was patient, waiting for me to take action rather than demanding what I knew.

Tobias and I said our farewells, pretending—both of us, in retrospect—it was only for the night, that a new chapter of our lives would begin within hours.

I waited until a little past midnight before calling Buchner’s number and immediately hanging up, the signal to him that he should come take over. I made my way down the stairs and into the street.

I’d walked a few blocks before I heard a stranger’s voice.

“Annika?”

How did they know my name? I turned, hesitated, and strong arms came down around me.

* * *

There was little information they could extract from me, to our mutual disappointment. They already knew everything Tobias had told them; what could I add? No, I was not in contact with anyone else. No, I didn’t know anyone on the outside. No, I hadn’t bombed anything. No, no, no. Of course if I knew anything more I would say something. I’d been ready to before, hadn’t I, with less to lose?

I know what comes next. They will not wait long. They will bind my eyes with a blindfold. They will lead me out to the courtyard, holding my arms once I can no longer see my own path. They will rest my head in a large groove, carved to fit larger necks. They will pull a lever, and a blade will fall.

They say it will not hurt.

I have time enough to write this. I don’t ask for forgiveness or understanding, or even to be remembered. All I can trust is that, if some stranger is reading this, the walls are not as impenetrable as they once loomed. Something of my life has made it out of these borders, or someone with an open heart has made it in. Even if I will not live to see it, this dream of freedom is worth believing in, at the last.


End file.
